As is well known in the art, the tires of automotive vehicles are provided with a configured tread portion including a plurality of grooves and raised rubber ridges that provide driving traction with the ground. Although various tread designs are provided by the various tire manufactures, typically, all of these tread designs or configurations are adapted to provide an optimal compromise of tire wear, traction, stopping and nonskid capabilities and the like.
Larger vehicles such as trucks, tractors, trailers, semi-trailers and the like are typically correspondingly provided with relatively large tires. Such relatively large tires are, in turn, typically provided with relatively large grooves of such a size that appreciably sized stones, rocks or the like may potentially be readily embedded into these grooves. The potential for embedding appreciably sized stones or the like is compounded by the fact that these vehicles are typically relatively heavy and, hence, the tires grooves are compressed when they contact the roadway.
As the tires rotate during motion of the vehicle, the tire grooves dilate as they leave the roadway hence freeing the stones. Accordingly, as the tires rotate, the formerly embedded stones are freed to be hurled relatively violently. Although stones are considered to be more dangerous, the tires of relatively large vehicles may also hurl mud, clots of dirt and water in a similar manner.
Typically, the rocks, mud or other material is hurled in a generally upward and backward direction and, in the case of relatively large vehicles, relatively large objects may impact the surrounding environment including other vehicles, potentially breaking windshields, injuring drivers, deforming car bodies or the like.
When water is hurled, so-called “tread throw” is thrown from the rotating tires and may impact against surfaces of the vehicle, causing the throw droplets to fragment into smaller droplets of spray. This spray may potentially impair the visibility of drivers of these and other vehicles during wet conditions. This may potentially result in erratic directional control by drivers of following cars and trucks which are enveloped in this spray, especially from the large commercial trucks and tractor-trailer combinations which are moving ahead of them or beside them as they travel on the wet roadway. Drivers of these large vehicles also have difficulties seeing, via their rearview mirror, through the spray generated by their own vehicles, which occasionally causes accidents as they change lanes.
Furthermore, the hurling may also occur at the top of the tire, hence potentially hurling stones in a forward direction. Impinging stones may contact the tractor tanks and other equipment and potentially damage the latter.
In view of the potential hazards caused by hurling of different materials by relatively large vehicles, laws and regulations have been implemented in some regions requiring a protective safety device for intercepting hurled stones and the like. Accordingly, the prior art has shown some examples of impingement shields also called mudguards, splash guards or fenders.
A conventional impingement shield widely used takes the form vertically supported sheets of substantially resilient material such as rubber that hangs in the form of a curtain behind the tires of the relatively large vehicles for the purpose of intercepting such hurled objects. While such impingement shields have been widely accepted, they nevertheless suffer from numerous drawbacks. One such drawback is that they do not provide any shielding action for stones or objects that may be projected or hurled in an upward and/or forward direction. Furthermore, they may prove to be less than satisfactory for tread throw.
Typically, relatively large vehicles such as trucks, tractors, trailers, semi-trailers or the like are not provided with metallic fenders or mudguards for a variety of technical reasons. One such reason relates to the fact that the truck's chassis is usually manufactured by a different manufacturer than the one who makes the truck's body. Hence, it is generally difficult to know in advance the size of the tires that will be used, the location of the wheels relative to the truck's body, the problems associated with changing the large tires, etc.
Another main problem associated with the use of conventional metallic fenders on large vehicles such as trucks, trailers and the like relates to the fact that these conventional fenders may relatively easily be damaged when subjected to various impact stresses such as when the wheels move vertically as a result of a bump or other irregularity in the roadway or when the fender contacts stationary obstacles such as a sidewalk curb or the like. With the tight tolerances found in modern streamlined vehicles such as the heavy-duty trucks, there is little if any extra space between the tire and fender, hence compounding the risk of potentially damaging impacts on the fender.
The potential for damaging conventional fenders is particularly important in situations wherein, for example, a semi-trailer is being mechanically coupled to its tractor truck. In such instances, the forward portion of the trailer van or the like typically contacts the fender as the tractor truck back up to position its coupling section including the hitch adjacent or underneath the trailer van.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved fender mountable to a vehicle. It is a general object of the present invention to provide such an improved fender mountable to a vehicle.